The roots of militancy lie in exploitation. Nothing demonstrates the truth of that more than the vast and amorphous tribal population in the country. Even the most peaceful of them are now using their primitive weapons for purposes other than hunting for food. The latest manifestation of this trend is in Andhra Pradesh where the Konda Reddis are showing signs of a dangerous militancy.

The roots of militancy lie in exploitation. Nothing demonstrates the truth of that more than the vast and amorphous tribal population in the country. Even the most peaceful of them are now using their primitive weapons for purposes other than hunting for food.

The latest manifestation of this trend is in Andhra Pradesh where the Konda Reddis, a tribe who inhabit the forested hills flanking the Godavari river where it breaks through the Eastern Ghats, are showing signs of a dangerous militancy. An aboriginal people, the Konda (hill) Reddis have been leading a marginal existence with meagre incomes from subsistence farming and tree-felling.

Government efforts to better their lot began many years ago but so far have shown little results. The consequence of that is now assuming alarming proportions. A restive minority among the otherwise easy-going tribals have turned to the Naxalites to help them achieve their ends. The People's War Group (PWG) faction of Naxalites has been active in central India for quite some time now, informing the tribals of their economic, social and political rights as well as providing summary if extraordinary justice, often with violence. India Today, April 30).

The rising trend of militancy is only a reaction to a long history of exploitation of Konda Reddis by forest contractors. The tribals are experts at tree-felling but contractors have been paying them absurdly low wages. Added to this is the fact that the Government's efforts to improve their standard of living has borne little fruit. Both the Central and state governments have set up myriad schemes to protect the tribal's interests. These include the establishment of an Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) based at Rampachodavaram. To gauge the extent of the new militancy and the Government's failure to improve the living standards of the tribals, Correspondent Amarnath K. Menon travelled to the area. His report:

Forests cleared for farming

The lives of the Konda Reddis have changed little since Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf, the well-known German anthropologist, first brought them to international notice in 1941. Maredu milli is one of the blocks of the East Godavari district where a majority of the Konda Reddis live.

There are 45,000 tribals spread over an area of 438,450 acres in 413 villages. But even in the most populous areas the population density is as low as 34 persons per sq km. The poor man-to-land ratio in the hilly inhospitable terrain and the low literacy rate (1.22 per cent) is reflected in the lack of progress.

Last fortnight, the Naxalite-inspired destruction of two trucks on the Mamadivada ghat road once again brought them back into national focus. The militant PWG has been active since last February and apart from last fortnight's incidents, have also set ablaze six trucks and two jeeps in the area.

So far their demands have centered around medical and other services for the paper mill workers. In the latest incident the trucks were set on fire just 200 yards from a paper mill camp. Said H.R. Choudary, the site supervisor: "The Naxalites did their talking at gunpoint and we had to do as they ordered. The group of nine people asked our workers to stack bamboo below the truck chassis and in the drivers' cabins to make sure the vehicles were completely gutted. They also demanded that the workers be given rice at Rs 2 a kilo."

Remains of the burnt trucks

After the latest incidence of militancy, C. Arjuna Rao, the state's home and tribal welfare secretary, ordered officials in the East Godavari district to step up anti-Naxalite operations. But obviously such a move would not have been necessary if the steps taken earlier to preserve tribal interests had been actually implemented. The advent of the Naxalites in the tribal area is a direct result of the Government's failure to raise the standard of living of the tribals, and bring to them any of the benefits of modernisation.

Says Maredumilli Panchayat Samiti President K.R. Reddi: "There has been no improvement in the tribals' condition. Instead the freedom to practise their way of agriculture - moving from one cleared patch of forest to another - and their search for food is being restricted by forest guards. When our people pick firewood they demand a chicken as a bribe. But they remain silent when others ferry bamboo and timber by trucks."

What makes matters worse is that indiscriminate felling of trees in the tribal area has not only damaged the ecological equilibrium but has also made it even more difficult for the tribals to earn their already precarious livelihood.

The rising trend of militancy is only a reaction to a long history of exploitation of Konda Reddis. The Government's efforts to improve their standard of living has borne little fruit.

Adding to their neglect has been the reluctance of even the lowest-level village worker to visit the Reddi villages, as that would mean a slog up several steep kilometres.

Says Achyut Desai, a member of the East Godavari zilla parishad, sarcastically: "Officials, whatever their rank feel like Tenzing Norgay when they visit any of these villages for the first time." Most officials feel a posting to the area is a punishment, and this results in indifference to their work.

Efforts are made to move out as soon as possible. Admits K. Mathajee, the woman block development officer (BDO) of Maredumilli: "Few have a commitment to work among the tribals even though they have respect and regard for us. Little is done to promote awareness and few supervisory officials go round on inspection." The officer confesses that although she's been in the block for only a year she herself is trying to get a transfer.

This indifference on the part of the officials is manifest in the poor utilisation of funds released by the Government under its special Konda Reddi scheme. Nearly Rs 12 lakh of about Rs 40 lakh given as special assistance remains unused.

In Maredumilli block the ordinary banking schemes to help the tribals buy plough bullocks, carts, sheep, oil engines and electric motors have not gotten off the ground. Only 466 of the 967 schemes sanctioned for 1983-84 in the block have been taken up.

Splitting bamboo for forest plantations

BDO Mathajee accuses the bank officials of indifference. But Andhra Bank Manager Sambasiva Rao counters that the block development office does not provide the techno-economic feasibility reports which are needed by the bank.

Whatever be the cause of the officials' ineffectiveness, the tribals continue to be taken advantage of. For example, five villagers of Yerrametla village were given plough bullocks which they were told cost less than Rs 1,200 a pair.

But when they got the loan recovery cards the amount due was Rs 1,400 a pair. The tribals' crime was that they could not count. In Vemulakonda, Kannan Reddi and Ram Reddi got Rs 375 for their plough bullock that had died even though the animal had been insured for Rs 500, its market value. But the Rs 375 was adjusted against the loan and the original purpose of giving them a pair of cattle, for systematic farming forgotten.

In another case, Kathula Sanayasama of Tadepalli was refused a certificate saying that seven of her sheep had died unless she brought the dead animals all the way to the block headquarters, which, of course, she found impossible.

The certificate was required by her to claim the insurance on the animals. She was then forced to sell the rest of her sheep for Rs 900 to repay her loan. Admitted an official of the ITDA frankly: "We are assessed on the basis of set targets and not by how our subsidies and loans help the tribals. Our main concern is to show the figures for distribution and number of beneficiaries."

"There has been no improvement in the tribals' condition. Instead the freedom to practice their way of agriculture and their search for food is being restricted."K.R. Reddi,president, Panchayat Samiti

The spirit to help the tribals gets strangled once again in bureaucracy and lethargy. Many of the women earn money though a scheme in which they make and sell brooms tied with plastic.

But one of them, Pallala Chittiamma says that each of the 8-kg bags of plastic wire given to the women weighed 150 gm less than they should have.

Some Konda Reddis, especially those who have more contact with the plains, are aware of the exploitation. Says Lachi Reddi, sarpanch of Maredumilli: "If officials know we realise the benefits we can get from the Government they make us run around several times to tire us and make us ultimately give up."

One of the tribals aware of the potential of the area is Kanam Lingaiah, who is growing cashew on a three-acre plot in the hope he will get title to the land later. However, most others from his village of Darigudem earn a paltry Rs 6 a day for splitting bamboo to use as markers in a government teak plantation.

Perhaps the only way for the Konda Reddis to take more control of their lives and reap some of the fruits of modernisation is through education. But their already low literacy rate of 1.22 per cent is poised to slip to an even lower level.

Schools have had little impact here for want of teachers and facilities. When teachers are available they prefer to live in roadside villages and visit the schools only two or three times a week. The upper primary school at Bodduluru has only two teachers instead of the seven it requires. None of its students has passed even the class seven exam.

Osmania University lecturer P. Jayaprakash Rao, who has travelled intensively in the area, recalls: "The ashram school in Gangavaram has 44 students on its rolls. But when I went there one day in February only 12 were in class.

Dried fish, the staple diet, on sale

Surprisingly, the teacher could identify only four students by name. He could not remember the title of the first lesson in the Telugu textbook for the fifth class. It was shocking to hear him confess that he taught the first and second class lessons to all attending the school. One of the two teachers of this type of boarding school is usually out buying groceries as he is also given the job of warden for an extra Rs 35 a month."

Raising the educational standards of the Konda Reddis would be very hard to do. The Tribal Cultural Resources Training Institute (TCRTI) estimates that 74 per cent of expenses on education is frittered away.

As an alternative, remarks ITDA project officer Manohar Prasad: "Schools should be merged and formal education given only to those tribals interested in it. The few who are regular can then get better quality education." TCRTI Director Mohan Rao emphasises that education must free the tribals from the mesh of irrational taboos and superstitions that ring their lives.

"Most tribals begin farming after they have sacrificed an animal or a bird. They think that death or ill health is due to some evil spirit or magic by their enemies. Their education must be reoriented and woven around their immediate problems."

Adds Prasad: "Outdated farming practices are responsible for low yields. The scope for farming can be improved by building check dams to store the water gushing down the hill streams for irrigation. Oranges, mangoes and cash crops could then be grown in plenty."

The Konda Reddis do not ask for much. Many of them are quite content with their forest life. As the first showers of the south-west monsoon rain on their steep hill slopes they dig the land with sticks and cast their seeds wide to raise pulses, sorghum and coarse millet which will be sufficient for their needs for a few months.

For the rest of the year they subsist on wild tubers, mushrooms and game hunted in the forest. In the backyards of their thatched homes they grow chillies, barley and tobacco. They exchange the produce they collect for other needs like salt and dried fish, a favourite food.

Fortunately for the Konda Reddis, alienation from the land which has been the bane of tribal societies elsewhere in the country is not much of an issue here. Large-scale occupation by non-tribals of their traditional preserve has yet to occur.

But incipient signs of just such a development exist. Trouble has been brewing in Kondamadulu and other areas closer to the plains as non-tribals begin to occupy tracts in the area. There have been suspicions that some officials have cheated tribals by giving them title deeds to land, which is not in their power to do.

Another problem lies in the extension of the reserve forest by the Forest Department shrinking the Konda Reddis' home turf. The Forest Department claims it is being deprived of 1,000 acres in East Godavari district. The matter has yet to be settled.

Disputes over land are also increasing, but justice is slow to be meted out. In the tribal areas, the tehsildars in addition to their many other duties must hold court as magistrates. Says Rampachodavaram Tehsildar M. Subba Rao: "In many land disputes, justice delayed is justice denied. But we cannot hold court as often as we wish to dispose of cases." Whatever the problem, the Konda Reddis now seem determined to fight fire with fire.

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